Soon as the infant saw the light with joy
Old Ocean straight received her in his arms.
And e’en the brute creation shared the pleasure.
... In succeeding years
A sacred town derived its mystic name
From that fair child whose birth coeval was
With the vast globe; but rich Ausonia’s sons
The city call Berytus.[514]
The same poet repeatedly maintains that the age of the city of Beroë was equal to that of the world, and that it could boast an antiquity much greater than that of Tarsus, Thebes, or Sardis. The reference to Beroë or Berith as the ever-favoured seat of Hermes implies the customary equation of Britannia = Athene = Wisdom. The prehistoric car illustrated in the preceding chapter is reproduced from a stone in Perthshire or Perithshire, and in a description written in 1569 this stone was then designated the Thane Stone.[515] That this was an Athene stone is somewhat implied by the further details, “it had a cross at the head of it and a goddess next that in a cart, and two horses drawing her and horsemen under that, and footmen and dogs”. The Thanes of Scotland were probably the official representatives of Athene, or Wisdom, or Justice, and the dogs of the Thane Stone may be connoted with the Hounds of Diana or Britomart, and the greyhounds of the English Fairy Queen.
Athene is presumably the same as Ethne, the reputed mother of St. Columba, and also as Ieithon, the Keltic goddess of speech or prating, after whom Anwyl considers the river Ieithon in Radnorshire was named. This Welsh river-name may be connoted with the river Ythan in Scotland, and the legend Ida, found upon the reverse of some of the Ikenian coins of England, may be connoted with the place-name Odestone, or Odstone, implying seemingly a stone of Od, or Odin.